.

drifting to a conclusion, of couples around them moving apart.

      ‘Well?’ he whispered in her ear, his deep voice another layer of seduction, another caress. ‘Make love with me, Jade. Make love with me now—tonight.’

      Something about the way he said her name wove its way deep into her senses, trailing a promise of things to come like a silken ribbon tugging insistently and irresistibly around her heated core.

      He wanted to make love to her. To hear his words had sent her into a heady spin. Just the very thought of making love with this man was intoxicating. Because she knew what her body wanted. It wanted her to answer in the affirmative.

      Was it wrong to want to? Was it wrong to want to give in to the desires that were besetting her? Wrong to give in to the forces of passion that were swirling around her—through her?

      There should be one thousand reasons why not. There should be reasons clamouring for attention, pounding on her brain for supremacy. But right now none of them could be found, and rational thought was so heavily weighted with pure physical need that it threw up arguments instead about why she should make love with him. Arguments like, how could it possibly be wrong when it felt so damned right?

      She lifted her head and looked into his eyes, felt the passion and the need, and knew that she couldn’t bring herself to lie. She couldn’t say no. And yet neither was she able to release herself totally from the constraints of her own upbringing. She’d never been the sort of person who did this sort of thing—meeting up with strangers and agreeing to make love with them.

      And yet here she was…

      ‘You’re a very magnetic man,’ she said, understating the facts by a factor of ten. ‘And I admit I’m attracted…’

      ‘But?’ he urged.

      ‘But I’m not protected,’ she heard herself say—the most honest thing she could think of under the circumstances.

      Something flared into life in his eyes, something that told her he wasn’t disappointed at the naïveté of her confession, that his need was barely contained, let alone extinguished.

      He let his arm peel slowly from around her back, instead winding it through hers and taking her hand as he led her from the floor. ‘Allow me to take care of that.’

      Despite the rush of cool air as they’d pulled apart, moist heat pooled heavy and insistent between her quivering thighs. Her heart thumping, she forced her legs to keep walking to the beat of the pounding in her veins, forced her melting spine to hold her erect. He was leading her somewhere private. He was leading her somewhere to make love to her.

      Her breath tripped in her throat. Had she meant to do that? Had her non-committal answer been designed to give him the chance to take the decision out of her hands? So that she would get what she wanted by default?

      Somehow he negotiated her through the room. The strain of knowing she’d landed herself in this position was threatening to shatter the plastic smile masking her face; the anticipation of what was to come was urging her to move even faster. The crowd was thinning out, people were spilling out into the terraces, and by now there would no doubt be a pool full of skimpily clad young women offering their wares, ready to take on all comers.

      Guests had drifted off into sheltered corners of the garden, or even not so sheltered ones, for their assignations. She’d never been comfortable with this side of celebrity life here in Beverly Hills—and yet wasn’t that what she was now doing herself? Searching for privacy, seeking out what amounted to a love-nest with someone little more than a stranger? Did she really want to be doing this?

      Whether he sensed her reluctance or was merely giving in to the relative quiet and darkness of a sheltered doorway some distance away, she found herself spun back against panelled wood as his mouth crashed down on hers.

      His lips were warm, his mouth was hot, and what he did to her senses sent her temperature rocketing off the scale and forced any returning logic to flee. She’d never before been bombarded with sensations such as these, never before been subjected to the overwhelming drive of passion. And never before could have imagined herself giving in to it. But then, she’d had no idea…

      His hands cupped her behind and she was pulled, full-length, up against his body, the clear evidence of his need pressing into her between them. She gasped into his mouth as she realised his evident size, felt his inherent power. Soon that power would be unleashed within her. She was melting down from the feel of his hands on her, from the touch of his lips, from the anticipation of what was to come.

      He drew his head back the merest fraction, his breathing as ragged and choppy as hers. ‘What’s behind that door?’ he said, his voice husky with desire, his words laced with need.

      ‘The library,’ she whispered back. ‘But it should be locked.’

      One hand left her for the moment it took to test the handle. It gave with the barest snick. Even in the gloom she could see the spark of his eyes gleaming down on her, as if he was closer to achieving some prize. Her heart fluttered as the realisation hit her. She was the prize. He wanted her and soon he would have her.

      Instead of fear, her expectation cranked up another notch. This feeling was mutual. Because he wasn’t the only one who was going to get something out of tonight.

      Tonight she would have him too.

      His lips came down to meet hers again, this time in a softer caress, his lips massaging hers, his tongue a brief graze across her teeth, and she let herself slide into his delicious touch. The man was good enough to eat, and she planned to relish every taste.

      Loukas turned her then, and silently they slipped into the void opening up behind them. Gently he pressed her back against the wall. Softly he pushed the door closed alongside her. Another tiny snick, but another huge moment. Because that door closing meant that there was no changing her mind.

      It meant there was no going back.

      CHAPTER THREE

      JADE let herself drown in the power of his kiss, giving herself up to his lips and his tongue and his raw masculine heat. Together they worked in a rhythm set by the primitive drumbeat pounding in her ears. He tasted so good—so right—and she answered his kiss with her own, seeking more, wanting more, her lips meshing with his, her tongue greedily seeking out whatever else he could give her.

      She felt one arm circle her neck, pulling her closer to him. The other she felt skim across the skin of her back, setting off a zipper-line of sensation that started with the involuntary thrust of her hips against his and ended with her gasping into his mouth at what she encountered yet again.

      His low, rumbling response told her he approved of her reaction, while his hand shifted to trace the underswell of her breast and then brushed over its surface, calling a halt to her breathing as it glanced over the nub of her tight nipple contained beneath.

      And, like a jolt of electricity, panic seized her, breaking through the magic fog he’d spun around her, forcing rational thought to surface at last and finally find its rightful place in her mind. She hadn’t thought this through! She hadn’t been thinking, period.

      What if he saw?

      Why had she put herself in a position where she could be so thoroughly humiliated once again?

      He’d said she was beautiful. Wasn’t that enough for her? Couldn’t she just have left it at that? She’d thought only of sex; she’d been too blinded by her own lust to see what should have been foremost in her mind: that Loukas would never want her when he knew. That Loukas would never in a million years think her beautiful once he knew.

      His mouth was on her throat, his lips dancing a wild tango against her neck, and her heart was still racing. But now there was fear and trepidation in her mix of emotions.

      She half registered a noise like a grunt, oddly distant when Loukas was so close. When the sound came again she froze.

      Someone else was in the room.

      She